Synchronization methods and systems

ABSTRACT

Synchronization architectures, methods, systems, and computer readable media are described. One exemplary embodiment includes a first software component which is configured to cause retrieval and storage of structured data for a first data class from a first store of the structured data on a device, such as a first data processing system, and is configured to synchronize structured data for the first data class in the first store with structured data of the first data class in a second store on a host, such as a second data processing system. The first software component is separate from an application software which provides a user interface to allow a user to access and edit the structured data. The first software component synchronizes the structured data through a second software component which interfaces with the host and the device and which controls an order of synchronizing and a plurality of data classes including the first data class.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.13/405,100 filed on Feb. 24, 2012, which is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 12/889,922, filed on Sep. 24, 2010, now issued asU.S. Pat. No. 8,126,845, which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/650,729, filed Jan. 7, 2007, now issued as U.S.Pat. No. 7,805,403.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The various embodiments described herein relate to systems and methodsfor synchronizing data between two or more data processing systems suchas a desktop computer system and a handheld computer system.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Modern data processing systems, such as a general purpose computer, ahandheld computer, a cellular telephone, media players, etc. have beenreduced in size to the point that they can often be readily carriedaround by a user. Furthermore, these devices are powerful enough thatthey can provide substantial computing power to allow a user to maintaincontact information, maintain calendar information, provide emailfunctionality, and even provide web browsing. These devices also mayinclude support for a task or a To Do list or database and other sourcesof data for a user. An example of a small handheld computer is the PalmTreo, and other examples of handheld computers include those which run aWindows CE operating system.

These handheld computers typically allow a user to synchronize theirdata between the handheld computer and another computer, such as auser's desktop computer, such that both computers maintain the same setof information, such as the same calendar for the user, thereby allowingthe user to view their calendar on either the desktop computer or thehandheld computer. The synchronization is typically performed bycoupling together the host computer with a handheld computer through amechanical and electrical connection provided by a dock. FIG. 1 shows anexample in the prior art of a handheld computer being coupledmechanically and electrically to a host computer through the dock 26.The system 10 includes the host computer 12 and the handheld computer14. Synchronization software 16, running on the host, performs thesynchronization between the respective databases, such as the contactsdatabase 18 which is synchronized with the handheld contacts database20. Furthermore, the synchronization software 16 synchronizes thecalendar database 22 on the host computer with the handheld's calendardatabase 24. Synchronization software 16 on the host computer cansynchronize each of the databases separately through the use of“conduits.” The synchronization software 16 opens and maintains a dataconnection link through a conduit, and each conduit must implement allthe software needed to make and maintain the link in order tosynchronize a particular database. The handheld computer merely acts asa storage device by vending its storage memory, such as a hard drive ora flash memory, to the host computer which, through the synchronizationsoftware 16, opens each database to perform the synchronization. Thereis often no active agent on the handheld computer 14 which participatesin the synchronization process; in other words, the synchronizationsoftware 16 on the host computer 12 performs the synchronizationoperations for both sets of databases on both devices. When there is asynchronization agent on the handheld computer, it does not have thefacilities and architecture described in this disclosure, including, forexample, providing a plug-in model on both the handheld and the host fordifferent data classes, and does not allow applications on the handheldcomputer to run concurrently with the synchronization process, andvarious other features described herein. There is no use ofauthentication and encryption using self-signed certificates withprivate key/public key cryptography. Certain existing systems allow forlimited synchronization of emails between a host and a handheldcomputer, but there is no synchronization of changes in email accountsetup information. Certain systems also allow for the synchronization ofbookmarks for web browsing between a host and a handheld computer. Thesesystems allow for the synchronization of a set of bookmarks having thesame format in both the handheld and the host. Certain synchronizationsystems are described under the name “SyncML” and further informationabout these systems can be found at www.openmobilealliance.org and atwww.openmobilealliance.org/tech/affiliates/syncml/syncmlindex.html.

SUMMARY OF THE DESCRIPTION

Synchronization architectures, methods, systems, and computer readablemedia are described herein. One embodiment includes a first softwarecomponent which is configured to cause retrieval and storage ofstructured data for a first data class from a first store of thestructured data on a device, such as a first data processing system, andis configured to synchronize structured data for the first data class inthe first store with structured data of the first data class in a secondstore on a host, such as a second data processing system. The firstsoftware component is separate from any application software whichprovides a user interface to allow a user to access and edit thestructured data. The first software component synchronizes thestructured data through a second software component which interfaceswith the host and the device and which implements an order ofsynchronizing a plurality of data classes including the first class. Thefirst software component may be designed to operate on only structureddata of the first data class, and the first data class may be, forexample, any one of calendar data, contact data, email account setupinformation, bookmarks, notes, To Do items, widgets (e.g. configurationsettings for widgets), and other data types. The first softwarecomponent may send one or more messages specifying a next device anchorand a previous host anchor in order to assure that the synchronizationprocess is complete and that if there are interrupted synchronizationprocesses, that these can be corrected. In one embodiment, the firstsoftware component sends a version identifier for the first softwarecomponent and this is compared to a version identifier for anothersoftware component on the other data processing system. This allows thetwo devices which are being synchronized to determine whethersynchronization can be performed in the first instance and how it willbe handled if it is to be performed. If the versions do not match in atleast one embodiment, the data class may not be synchronized and theuser may be presented with a user interface, such as a displayed alert,indicating that one or more software components needs to be upgraded orupdated in order to allow synchronization to be performed. In anotherembodiment, synchronization may still be performed even if the versionsdo not match as long as the versions are determined to be compatible.

In at least one embodiment, an architecture described herein allowsseparate and selective updating and upgrading of different softwarecomponents for the different data classes. Moreover, in at least certainembodiments, there is a separation between a layer of software or layersof software which maintain the data connection link between the host andthe device and the software which performs the retrieval and storageoperations as well as formatting operations and other operations, suchas sending version numbers, etc. In this exemplary architecture,additional such software components for synchronization can be addedwithout having to create additional software which maintains the datalink as the added software component may rely upon an existing layer orlayers of software to provide that functionality.

A method according to one embodiment includes retrieving and storing,through a first software component, structured data for a first dataclass from a first store of the structured data on a device, the firstsoftware component being separate from an application software whichprovides a user interface to allow a user to access and edit thestructured data. The method also includes synchronizing the structureddata for the first data class in the first store with structured datafor the first data class in a second store on a host, wherein the firstsoftware component synchronizes the structured data through a secondsoftware component which is coupled to the first software componentthrough software based messages. The second software component isconfigured to control at least one aspect of the maintenance of theconnection between the host and the device. For example, the secondsoftware component may be configured to implement an order ofsynchronizing the first data class relative to all other data classes ofthe structured data. Multiple software components which are similar tothe first software component for synchronizing other data classes canutilize the second software component to also maintain the dataconnection and to couple the host to the device through, for example,software based messages.

In at least certain embodiments, there is at least one active agent, inthe form of executing software on each of the device and the host, andin at least this way, the synchronization process between the host andthe device occurs in a peer-to-peer manner. One method according to thisaspect includes transferring structured data from a first store ofstructured data on a first device as part of a synchronization processand transferring metadata about the synchronization process, wherein thetransferring is being performed by a first software component which is afirst active agent which causes storage and retrieval of structured dataas part of the synchronization process. The method may further includereceiving structured data from a second store of structured data on asecond device as part of the synchronization process and receivingmetadata about the synchronization process from the second device. Thesynchronization process on the second device may be performed by asecond software component which is a second active agent which causesstorage and retrieval of structured data as part of the synchronizationprocess. In at least certain embodiments, the first software componenthas several separate independent components for each data class of thestructured data, and similarly, the second software component hasseveral, separate and independent software components for each dataclass of structured data.

Another aspect of at least certain embodiments described herein relatesto the use of version identifiers in the synchronization process todecide whether or not to synchronize a particular data class and how todo so if synchronization is to be performed. In one embodiment, a methodincludes comparing a first version identifier for a first softwarecomponent on a first data processing system and a second versionidentifier for a second software component on a second data processingsystem. The first software component is configured to cause storage andretrieval of structured data on the first data processing system as partof a synchronization process for synchronizing structured data on thefirst and second data processing systems. The second software componentis configured to cause storage and retrieval of structured data on thesecond data processing system as part of the synchronization process.The method also includes determining whether to perform thesynchronization in response to the comparison of the versionidentifiers. In one implementation of this embodiment, each softwarecomponent on, for example, a host and a device, transmits its versionidentifier to the other component. Hence, each component on each system(e.g. a synchronization software component on a device and asynchronization software component on the host) will have both versionidentifiers. This will allow both systems to determine which version islater in time (typically indicated by the magnitude of the versionnumber, such that a higher version number represents a later softwarecomponent). This allows either system to decide to control or overseethe process depending on which software component is later in time. Thesoftware component which is later in time will typically include theability to be backward-compatible with older data formats as well assupport newer data formats; hence, in at least certain embodiments, thesoftware component which is later in time decides whether and how toperform the synchronization. If it decides that synchronization cannotbe performed, a user interface may be presented to the user to indicatethat one or more software components should be upgraded or updated inorder to allow synchronization for the particular data class to occur.

Another aspect of at least certain embodiments described herein relatesto the automatic checking of whether a data class is supported. In oneembodiment, a method includes determining whether a first softwarecomponent is available on a first data processing system, wherein thefirst software component is configured for causing retrieval and storageof structured data of a first data class as part of a synchronizationprocess. This determining may be performed by simply requesting that thedevice synchronize a certain data class and waiting for either anacknowledgement or a refusal from the device for that data class. Thisdetermining may be performed separately for each data class. Inaddition, the method includes determining, automatically in response todetermining of whether the first software component is available,whether to synchronize the structured data of the first data classbetween the first data processing system and the second data processingsystem.

Other systems and methods are also described, and computer readablemedia, which contain executable instructions to cause a computer tooperate as described herein, are also described.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention is illustrated by way of example and notlimitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which likereferences indicate similar elements.

FIG. 1 shows in block diagram form an example of a prior artsynchronization system.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a data processing system, such as a hostcomputer.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a data processing system, such as a handheldcomputer or other type of data processing system.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a software architecture for implementingsynchronization between, for example, a device and a host.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing events in time between a device and ahost according to one example of a synchronization process.

FIGS. 6A and 6B are flow charts which illustrate a synchronizationprocess on, for example, a host.

FIGS. 7A and 7B are flow charts illustrating a synchronization processon, for example, a device.

FIGS. 8A and 8B are flow charts illustrating the use of versionidentifiers according to at least certain embodiments of the inventions.

FIGS. 9A and 9B illustrate two examples of data formats for twodifferent types of data classes; in particular, FIG. 9A shows a dataformat for a contacts data class which contains structured data, andFIG. 9B shows a data format for a calendar data class.

FIG. 10 shows an example of a software architecture having multiplelayers as described herein.

FIG. 11 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a method which maybe performed with the software architecture shown in FIG. 10.

FIG. 12 illustrates the result of a two-way authentication process whichmay be used in at least certain embodiments described herein.

FIGS. 13A and 13B are flowcharts which illustrate one method in whichsynchronization and non-synchronization operations may be performedconcurrently by one or both of a host and a device during asynchronization process.

FIGS. 14A, 14B, 14C, and 14D illustrate various possible formats forbookmarks for different types of web browsers.

FIGS. 15A, 15B, 15C, and 15D illustrate a modified bookmark structurewhich occurs after synchronization through, in at least one embodiment,an intermediate or canonical format for a bookmark data structure.

FIG. 16A shows an example of mapping relationships between a web browseron a host and a web browser on a device, wherein this mappingrelationship also shows the mapping between the data structure of thebookmarks on the host and the device relative to an intermediate format.

FIG. 16B is a flow chart illustrating a method according to oneembodiment described herein.

FIG. 16C is a flow chart illustrating another embodiment relating to thesynchronization of bookmarks.

FIGS. 16D, 16E, and 16F provide examples of user interfaces for allowingpreference settings with respect to the synchronization of bookmarksbetween two data processing systems, such as between a device and ahost.

FIG. 17 is a flow chart illustrating a method for synchronization ofemail account or other electronic message account setup information.

FIG. 18 shows a memory of a device and a memory of a host which storeemail account setup information as shown in the figure.

FIG. 19 is a flow chart which illustrates one method for synchronizingnotes which may include embedded To Do's in at least certain embodimentsdescribed herein.

FIG. 20 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a method forcreating a To Do within a note to create an embedded To Do.

FIG. 21 shows an example of a method for using a filter to decidewhether or not a note is to be synchronized.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various embodiments and aspects of the inventions will be described withreference to details discussed below, and the accompanying drawings willillustrate the various embodiments. The following description anddrawings are illustrative of the invention and are not to be construedas limiting the invention. Numerous specific details are described toprovide a through understanding of various embodiments of the presentinvention. However, in certain instances, well-known or conventionaldetails are not described in order to provide a concise discussion ofembodiments of the present inventions.

The present invention can relate to an apparatus for performing one ormore of the operations described herein. This apparatus may be speciallyconstructed for the required purposes, or it may comprise a generalpurpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computerprogram stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored ina machine (e.g. computer) readable storage medium, such as, but is notlimited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks,CD-ROMs, and magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), randomaccess memories (RAMs), erasable programmable ROMs (EPROMs),electrically erasable programmable ROMs (EEPROMs), magnetic or opticalcards, or any type of media suitable for storing electronicinstructions, and each coupled to a bus.

A machine-readable medium includes any mechanism for storing ortransmitting information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., acomputer). For example, a machine-readable medium includes read onlymemory (“ROM”); random access memory (“RAM”); magnetic disk storagemedia; optical storage media; flash memory devices; electrical, optical,acoustical or other form of propagated signals (e.g., carrier waves,infrared signals, digital signals, etc.); etc.

Prior to describing the various different embodiments in connection withsynchronization architectures, systems, methods and computer readablemedia, a brief discussion will be provided in connection with the dataprocessing systems which may be part of the synchronization process. Theterm “host” and the term “device” are intended to refer generally todata processing systems rather than specifically to a particular formfactor for the host versus a form factor for the device. FIGS. 2 and 3show examples of two different data processing systems, where the systemshown in FIG. 2 may be referred to as a host while the system shown inFIG. 3 may be referred to as a device, although the system shown in FIG.2 may be referred to as a device while the system shown in FIG. 3 may bereferred to as a host.

FIG. 2 shows one example of a computer system which is a form of a dataprocessing system. Note that while FIG. 2 illustrates various componentsof a computer system, it is not intended to represent any particulararchitecture or manner of interconnecting the components as such detailsare not germane to the present inventions. It will also be appreciatedthat personal digital assistants (PDAs), cellular telephones, mediaplayers (e.g. an iPod), devices which combine aspects or functions ofthese devices (a media player combined with a PDA and a cellulartelephone in one device), network computers, an embedded processingdevice within another device, and other data processing systems whichhave fewer components or perhaps more components may also be used toimplement one or more embodiments of the present inventions and may beone or more of the data processing systems described herein. Thecomputer system shown in FIG. 2 may, for example, be a Macintoshcomputer from Apple Computer, Inc. or a computer which runs the Windowsoperating software from Microsoft Corporation.

As shown in FIG. 2, the computer system 45 includes a bus 51 which iscoupled to one or more microprocessors which form a processing system47. The bus 51 is also coupled to memory 49 and to a non-volatile memory50, which may be a magnetic hard drive in certain embodiments, or flashmemory in other embodiments. The bus is also coupled to a displaycontroller and display 52 and one or more input/output (I/O) devices 53.Further, the bus is coupled to an optional dock 54 and to one or morewireless transceivers 55, which may be a Bluetooth transceiver or a WiFitransceiver or an infrared transceiver. It will be appreciated that thewireless transceivers 55 are optional as shown in FIG. 2. The processingsystem 47 may optionally be coupled to optional cache 48. The processingsystem 47 may include one or more microprocessors, such as amicroprocessor from Intel or IBM. The bus 51 interconnects these variouscomponents together in a manner which is known in the art. Typically,the input/output devices 53 are coupled to the system throughinput/output controllers. The memory 49 may be implemented as dynamicRAM (DRAM) which provides fast access to data but requires powercontinually in order to refresh or maintain the data in the memory. Thenon-volatile memory 50 may be a magnetic hard drive or othernon-volatile memory which retains data even after power is removed fromthe system. While FIG. 2 shows that the non-volatile memory 50 is alocal device coupled directly to the rest of the components in the dataprocessing system, it will be appreciated that other embodiments mayutilize a non-volatile memory which is remote from a system, such as anetwork storage device, which is coupled to the data processing systemthrough a network interface, such as a modem or an Ethernet interface.The bus 51, as is well known in the art, may include one or more busesconnected to each other through various bridges, controllers, and/oradapters as is known in the art. In one embodiment, the I/O controller53 may include a USB adapter for controlling USB peripherals and anIEEE-1394 controller for IEEE-1394 compliant peripherals.

It will be apparent from this description that aspects of the inventionsmay be embodied, at least in part, in software. That is, the techniquesmay be carried out in a computer system or other data processing systemin response to its processor or processing system executing sequences ofinstructions contained in a memory, such as memory 49 or non-volatilememory 50 or the memory 63 shown in FIG. 3. In various embodiments,hardwired circuitry may be used in combination with the softwareinstructions to implement the present inventions. Thus, the techniquesare not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry andsoftware nor to any particular source for the instructions executed bythe data processing system. In addition, throughout this description,various functions and operations are described as being performed by orcaused by software code to simplify description. However, those skilledin the art will recognize that what is meant by such expressions is thatthe functions result from execution of the code by a processing system.

The dock 54 and/or the wireless transceivers 55 provide a physicalinterface for coupling the data processing system shown in FIG. 2 toanother data processing system, such as the data processing system shownin FIG. 3, or to another data processing system which resembles thesystem shown in FIG. 2. The dock 54 may be similar to a dock in theprior art, such as the dock 26, such that it provides both a mechanicaland electrical connection between one data processing system and anotherdata processing system to allow a synchronization process to beperformed between the two systems. In other embodiments, the wirelesstransceivers 55 may provide an electrical connection between the twosystems for the purpose of a synchronization process without providing amechanical connection between the two systems.

FIG. 3 shows an example of another data processing system which maysynchronize data with other data processing systems, such as the systemshown in FIG. 2 or a system which is similar to that shown in FIG. 3.The data processing system 60 shown in FIG. 3 includes a processingsystem, which may be one or more microprocessors, or which may be asystem on a chip integrated circuit, and the system also includes memory63 for storing data and programs for execution by the processing system.The system 60 also includes an audio input/output subsystem 64 which mayinclude a microphone and a speaker for, for example, playing back musicor providing telephone functionality through the speaker and microphone.A display controller and display device 65 provide a visual userinterface for the user; this digital interface may include a graphicaluser interface which is similar to that shown on a Macintosh computerwhen running OS X operating system software. The system 60 also includesone or more wireless transceivers, such as a WiFi transceiver, aninfrared transceiver, a Bluetooth transceiver, and/or a wirelesscellular telephony transceiver. It will be appreciated that additionalcomponents, not shown, may also be part of the system 60 in certainembodiments, and in certain embodiments fewer components than shown inFIG. 3 may also be used in a data processing system. The data processingsystem 60 also includes one or more input devices 66 which are providedto allow a user to provide input to the system. These input devices maybe a keypad or a keyboard or a touch panel or a multi-touch panel. Thedata processing system 60 also includes an optional input/output device67 which may be a connector for a dock, such as the dock 54 shown inFIG. 2. It will be appreciated that one or more buses, not shown, may beused to interconnect the various components as is well known in the art.The data processing system shown in FIG. 3 may be a handheld computer ora personal digital assistant (PDA), or a cellular telephone withPDA-like functionality, or a handheld computer which includes a cellulartelephone, or a media player, such as an iPod, or devices which combineaspects or functions of these devices, such as a media player combinedwith a PDA and a cellular telephone in one device. In other embodiments,the data processing system 60 may be a network computer or an embeddedprocessing device within another device, or other types of dataprocessing systems which have fewer components or perhaps morecomponents than that shown in FIG. 3.

At least certain embodiments of the inventions may be part of a digitalmedia player, such as a portable music and/or video media player, whichmay include a media processing system to present the media, a storagedevice to store the media and may further include a radio frequency (RF)transceiver (e.g., an RF transceiver for a cellular telephone) coupledwith an antenna system and the media processing system. In certainembodiments, media stored on a remote storage device may be transmittedto the media player through the RF transceiver. The media may be, forexample, one or more of music or other audio, still pictures, or motionpictures.

The portable media player may include a media selection device, such asa click wheel input device on an iPod® or iPod Nano® media player fromApple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., a touch screen input device,pushbutton device, movable pointing input device or other input device.The media selection device may be used to select the media stored on thestorage device and/or the remote storage device. The portable mediaplayer may, in at least certain embodiments, include a display devicewhich is coupled to the media processing system to display titles orother indicators of media being selected through the input device andbeing presented, either through a speaker or earphone(s), or on thedisplay device, or on both display device and a speaker or earphone(s).Examples of a portable media player are described in published U.S.patent application numbers 2003/0095096 and 2004/0224638, both of whichare incorporated herein by reference.

In certain embodiments, the data processing system 60 may be implementedin a small form factor which resembles a handheld computer having atablet-like input device which may be a multi-touch input panel devicewhich is integrated with a liquid crystal display. Examples of suchdevices are provided in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/586,862,filed Oct. 24, 2006, and entitled “AUTOMATED RESPONSE TO AND SENSING OFUSER ACTIVITY IN PORTABLE DEVICES,” which is assigned to the sameassignee as the instant application. This foregoing application ishereby incorporated herein by reference.

In the following description, various software components which are usedfor both synchronization and non-synchronization processing operationsare described. It will be understood that in at least certainembodiments, these various software components may be stored in thememory 49 and/or memory 50 shown in FIG. 2 for one type of dataprocessing system, and in the case of a system such as that shown inFIG. 3, these various different software components may be stored in thememory 63 which may include volatile memory as well as non-volatilememory, such as flash memory or a magnetic hard drive.

FIG. 4 shows an example of an embodiment of a particular softwarearchitecture for a synchronization system between one or more dataprocessing systems, such as a device, which may be a handheld computer,and a host, which may be a desktop or a laptop computer. This softwarearchitecture may be used to implement one or more of the variousembodiments described herein, such as the methods shown in FIGS. 5, 6A,6B, 7A, and 7B, and FIGS. 8A and 8B. This synchronization system may beused to synchronize structured data, such as data in a contacts oraddress database. Different data typically have different structures orformats which specify how the data is organized and formatted. These arereferred to as data classes, and FIGS. 9A and 9B provide examples of twodifferent structured data formats for two different data classes. Inparticular, FIG. 9A shows a data format for a contacts data class, andFIG. 9B shows a format for a calendar data class format. Thesynchronization system shown in FIG. 4 may be used to synchronizecalendar data between two different calendar stores on the two differentsystems and to also synchronize contact data between the two contactstores on the two systems as will be described further below.

The software architecture shown in FIG. 4 includes a plurality ofsoftware components on the device side 101 and a plurality of softwarecomponents on the host side 103. There is, in addition, device linksoftware 107 which in effect bridges the connection between the twosoftware components which are separated by the line 105 which representsthe physical separation between the device and the host. It will beappreciated that the software components on each side are stored inrespective memory on each data processing system. The device includesone or more user application programs which are used to access and editstructured data in a particular data class. FIG. 4 shows examples ofthree such user application programs. In particular, calendarapplication program 125 is used to access and edit calendar data in thecalendar store database 119. Similarly, the contacts application programis used by a user to access and edit contacts or address bookinformation stored in the contacts store database 121. Similarly, theother application programs 129, which may include a notes applicationprogram, widget programs for presenting widgets, a web browser havingbookmarks, an email program which includes email account setupinformation, a To Do list program, and possibly other programs whichhave structured data, are represented by the other application programs129 which have access to and provide the ability to edit information inother stored databases 123. These user application programs, such asapplication programs 125 and 127, are separate from the synchronizationsoftware components which are responsible for synchronizing structureddata in each of the different classes. These software components areshown in FIG. 4 as data sources 113, 115, and 117. In particular, thecalendar data source 113 is responsible for causing the retrieval andstorage of the structured data from its particular data class, which isthe calendar data class, during a synchronization process. Similarly,the contacts data source 115 is responsible for causing the retrievaland storage of structured data in the contacts stored database 121,which may represent the user's address book or other contact informationdatabase. Similarly, other data sources, such as other data sources 117,are responsible for causing the retrieval and storage of structured datafrom other structured data stores. This may include databases for notes,emails, bookmarks, and/or To Do lists and other databases or stores ofdata. The data sources may also perform other functions, such asformatting the data either for storage on the device or for transmissionto the host, transmitting and/or receiving version identifiers withrespect to each data source relative to each data class handler for aparticular data class, sending device and host anchors as describedherein in order to ensure that synchronization operations are performedas atomic transactions to ensure that the synchronization is eithercompleted or not, allowing the system to roll back to a prior state ifit is not completed (in order to ensure that synchronization can beperformed even if the connection is interrupted). Further, the datasources may also remap unique identification values for records on thedevice to records on the host so that the device can maintain a uniquerecord regardless of a record ID (identifier) provided by a host. Eachdata source is coupled through software based messages to a sync agentsoftware component 109 which is responsible for, at least in part,maintaining a data connection between the device and the host through adevice link software stack 107, an example of which is shown in FIG. 10and described herein. The sync agent 109 provides services, throughsoftware based messages, such as calls or APIs (Application ProgramInterface), to various data sources. In at least one embodiment, thesync agent 109 may implement or handle or determine the order ofsynchronization of the various data classes by specifying directly orindirectly the order. For example, the sync agent 109 may determine andspecify that the calendar data class is synchronized first and then thecontacts data class is synchronized next and then the To Do list dataclass is synchronized next, etc. The sync agent 109, in anotherembodiment, may receive the order through one or more commands ormessages from the sync client and, in turn, may implement that order bysending messages to the data sources in that order. The sync agent 109also alerts a data source if a link fails when synchronization isoccurring, and it will tell the data source to roll back to a priorsynchronization state if the link fails before synchronization iscompleted. Further, the sync agent may ask a data source to commitchanges if the synchronization has been successful, which causes thedata source to write the data to a particular store for the particulardata class.

The software architecture of FIG. 4 provides abstractions that allowplugging in of many different data classes; including “after market”plug-ins by third party suppliers in at least certain embodiments. Ineffect, this architecture creates a “sync client” which is split intotwo pieces (one on the host in the form of synch client 111 and one onthe device in the form of sync agent 109) and uses a sync server, in theform of sync services 141, which operates with both the synch client 111and the sync agent 109. The device, in an embodiment in thisarchitecture, does not interact directly with the sync server (e.g. syncservices 141) but instead exchanges messages with the sync client 111which interacts (through software based messages) with the sync server.In one embodiment, the Sync Server manages storing, comparing(mingling), and differencing data from various clients (applications,other servers, and Sync Client for a device). The Sync Client, in oneembodiment, manages the connection (with authentication andcryptography) to the device, transferring and modifying data between thedevice and the computer, as well as handling sync anchors, control flowto arbitrate between the sync server and the device, checking versioningof data classes, and providing a plug-in model to optimize and organizehandling of different data classes (DataClassHandlers). The Sync Client,in one embodiment, also does all the filtering (only syncing contacts inspecific groups, or events in specific calendars, events within a daterange, a subset of mail accounts, and notes or note attachments with asize threshold). In one embodiment, SyncAgent has a plug-in model forData Sources, and runs as a separate process from applications on thedevice which manage/display the data, but can interact with them inparallel (with locking, or concurrent access), and notifies theapplications when data changes.

The device link software component 107 includes a plurality of softwarecomponents, such as the layers of software components shown in FIG. 10,and the device link 107 maintains, in at least one embodiment, anauthenticated connection link between the device and the host, therebyallowing the passing of commands and data between the two dataprocessing systems during the synchronization process. In addition, asshown in FIG. 10, the device link software components 107 also providefor, in at least certain embodiments, the connection to be used foradditional applications to transfer other information back and forthbetween the device and the host including, but not limited to, a backupapplication or a configuration application and diagnostic tools. Furtherdetails with respect to the device link 107 are provided below inconnection with FIGS. 10, 11, and 12. In at least certain embodiments,at least a portion of the device link software stack may reside on boththe device and the host memory. In preferred embodiments, a portion ofthe device link software stack resides and executes on both the deviceand the host.

The device link software component 107 provides for a communication linkbetween the sync agent 109 executing on the device 101 and the syncclient 111 executing on the host 103. The device link 107 passessoftware based messages, such as calls and responses to calls, betweensoftware components as well as the structured data prepared in a formatfor synchronization in at least certain embodiments. The sync client 111operates, at least in part, to maintain an authenticated connectionbetween the host and device in at least certain embodiments. Moreover,the sync client, in one embodiment, may send device and host anchors asdescribed herein, and may cause the saving of next device and next hostanchors in response to a successful synchronization for a particulardata class as described further herein. In one embodiment, the syncclient will determine the synchronization mode as described furtherbelow and will also invoke the correct data class handler for aparticular data class to manage the handling of data during thesynchronization session for that data class, such as determining theentity types which are to be synchronized for that data class,transforming records to and from the device, determining the order topull changes from the sync server (sync services) based on entity type,and to perform filtering on records pulled from the sync server (syncservices). The sync client 111 is coupled to a data class handler foreach data class which is supported by the host. In the example shown inFIG. 4, there is a data class handler for the calendar data class 135,and a data class handler for a contacts data class 137, as well as dataclass handlers for one or more other data classes 139. Each of thesedata class handlers is dedicated to providing synchronization servicesduring a synchronization process for a particular data class. Forexample, when synchronizing calendar data, the data class handler willformat calendar data obtained from a calendar data store 143A so thatsuch data may be transmitted to the device for storage on the calendarstore 119. Similarly, the data class handler may format data receivedfrom the device so that it may be stored in a database on the host. Forexample, the data class handler may perform, in at least certainembodiments, reformatting operations on data received from the device101. In at least certain embodiments, the data class handlers for eachdata class may perform one or more functions for that particular dataclass. For example, the data class handler may cause the retrieval andstorage of structured data from the store for that data class.Furthermore, the data class handler may format data for the device, andmay filter structured data when synchronizing data. This filtering maybe based upon a group, such as a personal group or business group for acontacts data store or may be based on size, such as for a notes datastore as described further below. Moreover, a data class handler maysend its version identifier to its corresponding data source for aparticular data type on the device and may receive an identifier of theversion of the data source for that particular data class. Moreover, adata class handler may create a new filter based on new records sent tothe device or received from the device or perform operations withrespect to modifying filters, such as a filter based on group or size orother parameters, as a result of the synchronization process, andSyncClient will save the modified filters. Moreover, SyncClient maycause the saving of remapped identifiers obtained from the device forrecords on the device as described herein. It will be understood that adata class handler for a particular class will typically be executing atthe same time as a data source of the same class on the device. Thesetwo software components, together with a sync agent on the device andthe sync client on the host, form active agents on both data processingsystems which are active in executing software components as part of thesynchronization process. In one embodiment, the data class handlers maynot directly cause the storage and retrieval of structured data fromdata stores on the host. They transmit messages to the sync client 111which in turn requests the sync services 141 which may in turn directlyor indirectly cause retrieval and storage from the calendar storeddatabase 143A or the contacts stored database 145A or other storeddatabases 147A. In another embodiment, Sync Client drives the saving andretrieval process, and gets data from sync services, and calls out tofunctions in the Data Class handler. The Sync Client asks the data classhandler what entity types to synchronize with sync services. When itgets records it asks the data class handler to transform them for thedevice (note that the data class handler might return the same recorduntransformed in many cases). The Sync Client wires the Data ClassHandler directly to the Sync Server (sync services) for purposes offiltering, so that the sync server directly asks the DataClassHandlerwhether or not to filter a record, and then the Sync Client asks theData Class Handler (both after it has finished pushing records from thedevice and after it has pulled records from sync services for thedevice). The Data Class Handler is “responsive;” it responds to requestsfrom the Sync Client (and in the case of filtering, the Sync Server),and it is the Sync Client that is the active agency responsible forcontrolling the sync operation on the host side.

The host may also include user application programs, such as a calendarapplication program 143, a contacts application program 145, and otherapplication programs 147 which are used by a user to access and editcorresponding data classes having structured data stored in acorresponding stored database, such as a calendar stored database 143A.The architecture shown in FIG. 4 shows the data stores on the host sideas being coupled directly to the application program; it will beappreciated that there is typically a file management system on a hostdata processing system which manages each database and which receivescalls or other requests from software components such as the applicationprograms 143 or 145 or other components, such as data class handlers orthe sync services 141 in order to affect reading and writing of data toa particular stored database.

The following tables set out the functions of each of the followingsoftware components shown in FIG. 4: (1) a data source component; (2)sync agent component; (3) sync client component; and (4) data classhandler component.

TABLE A Data Source Open data source (database or files used to housedata) Provide version, determine if can sync if Sync Client (Data Classhandler) version is smaller Manage Computer (host) and Device SyncAnchors on device side, determine if can fast or slow sync Coordinatewith applications using data from data source Clear all data if beingreset Send changed/new/deleted records to Sync Client Coordinate withapplication(s) for its data class to keep track of which records havechanged since last synchronization (Change History) Process and Commitdata from Sync Client side Remap record identifiers for new records fromSync Client side

TABLE B Sync Agent Manage connection from the device to the Sync Clienton computer side Manage control flow/state machine for synchronizationoperation on device side Interface to DeviceLink for connection layer ondevice (which also does the authentication and cryptography) Set up thecorrect Data Source for a given Data Class Provide processinfrastructure for synchronization Launch on demand so Sync Client canconnect to device to synchronize Cleanly handle connection loss orcancel request from Computer (host) side Handle cancel notification ondevice side (i.e. from a user interface on the device) to stopsynchronizing at user request

TABLE C Sync Client Manage connection to Sync Server (sync services) oncomputer (host), and Sync Agent on device Manage control flow/statemachine for synchronization operation on computer (host) side ManageComputer and Device Sync Anchors on computer (host) side Interface toDeviceLink for connection layer on computer (host) (which also does theauthentication and cryptography) Set up the correct Data Class Handlerand load filtering information for a given Data Class Interface to SyncServer (sync services)—manage sync type (fast, slow, reset) andsynchronization operation with Sync Server (sync services) Get changesfrom Sync Server (sync services) to send to Device Tell Sync Serverabout remapped record identifiers from Sync Client (Data Source) Cleanlyhandle connection loss or cancel request from device side Handle cancelnotification on computer (host) side (i.e. from a user interface on thecomputer (host)) to stop synchronizing at user request

TABLE D Data Class Handler Provide version, determine if can synchronizeif Sync Agent (Data Source) version is smaller (older) Specify whichdata types to synchronize Provide Filtering on all records Specify whichorder to pull different record types from Sync Server (sync services)(to make device side processing of added/changed records more efficient)Transform records (e.g. from one format to another format) pulled fromSync Services on computer (Sync Server) to be sent to the device (tooptimize transfer and work for device) Transform records (e.g. from oneformat to another format) from device (Sync Agent/Data Source) to bepushed into SyncServices (to optimize transfer and work for device)

FIG. 5 shows a flow chart indicating various actions and operationswhich occur on the host and the device over time during a typicalsynchronization process according to at least one embodiment. Thevertical line down the center separates the host operations and actionsfrom the device's operations and actions and also represents theprogress of time during a synchronization operation. The host 177 maybegin the synchronization by connecting to the device and authenticatingwith the device in operation 179. This may be a two-way authenticationusing self-signed certificates and a self-assigned certificate authorityfrom the host. An example of a collection of certificates which may beused in connection with a two-way authentication is shown in FIG. 12.This authentication may be encrypted with public key/private keycryptography so that the security level is relatively high. This willallow a mobile handheld device to be securely authenticated through aWiFi wireless connection or a Bluetooth wireless connection without riskof the device being exposed to other hosts, thereby revealingpotentially private and/or confidential data on the device or its host.In response to the connection operation 179, the device 175 respondswith a ready signal 181. Then in operation 183, the host indicates thatit wants to begin a synchronization operation for data class A (or thenext data class) as shown in operation 183. Typically, synchronizationis performed for one data class at a time by one data source and onedata class handler on the device and the host, respectively, at least inthose embodiments which use the software architecture of FIG. 4. Inresponse to the signal in operation 183, the device responds with anacknowledgement in operation 185 indicating that it is capable ofperforming a synchronization operation on data class A because it hasthe necessary software components, such as a data source for the dataclass A. If the device does not have the necessary software componentsto perform the synchronization, it will indicate that synchronizationcannot proceed. In this manner, at least in certain embodiments, thedevice and the host perform automatic checking, without userintervention, for the support to synchronize one or more data classes.This automatic checking of support for each data class may be performedseparately for all data classes or selected data classes on both thedevice and the host. In at least certain embodiments, the device and/orhost may decide, based on dynamic conditions and states, not tosynchronize a data class at a particular time. For example, if anapplication which uses a database having data in the data class isactively using the database, then the device and/or host may notsynchronize that data class in the current synchronization process. Inresponse to the acknowledgement from operation 185 of the device, thehost in operation 187, sends its version number for the particular dataclass handler for data class A. In response, the device, in operation189, sends its version number for its data source for data class A. Inthis way, each of the device and the host receive both version numbersand can perform a comparison to determine which software component touse to decide whether and how to synchronize the structured data in dataclass A. Typically, the higher version number indicates the laterversion of the software component. Typically, it is preferred to use thelater software component to decide whether and how to synchronize for aparticular data class. In alternative embodiments, it may be possible touse the earlier software component. The advantage of using the latersoftware component is that it has knowledge of prior formats, generally,and hence will understand how to deal with prior formats as well assupporting newer formats. In at least one embodiment, if the data sourceis a later version than the data class handler, then the device willdecide how to handle the synchronization if it can be performed. On theother hand, in at least certain embodiments, if the data class handleron the host is the later version of the software component in thiscomparison, then the host may decide how to perform the synchronizationfor the particular data class. Further information in connection withthis comparison of version numbers is provided in conjunction with adiscussion of FIGS. 8A and 8B below.

After operation 189, the host, in operation 191, sends a next hostanchor and the previous device anchor to the device. The device, inoperation 193, sends its next device anchor and the previous hostanchor. These anchors are used, as is known in the art, to attempt tomake the synchronization operations essentially atomic transactions suchthat a synchronization is either completed or not and each of the hostand the device can recognize that a prior synchronization is incompleteand hence the data was rolled back to its prior state without makingchanges which would have occurred if a particular synchronizationsession had been completed. In each of operations 191 and 193, the hostand the device respectively may also transmit to the other system asynchronization type, which indicates a particular type ofsynchronization which the sending system thinks it needs to perform inthe current synchronization operation. There are typically at leastthree different types of synchronization operations: (1) a completesynchronization, which typically occurs the first time that a host and adevice are synchronized; (2) a changes synchronization, which merelysynchronizes the changes that occurred since the last synchronization;and (3) a reset operation in which data on one or more system is resetto a default or factory setting, which typically means all user data iserased or removed from the system which has been reset. The type ofsynchronization requested by each device is considered in asynchronization type negotiation. Typically, both systems will send thesame synchronization type (e.g. a changes type), but in some instances,one system may request a complete or slow synchronization while anotherwill request a changes (fast) synchronization, and in such instance, inat least one embodiment, the two systems will negotiate to select the“worst” synchronization operation in the sense of time. Since thecomplete synchronization takes longer than a changes synchronization, inmost cases, the complete synchronization (a “slow” synchronization) willbe selected over a fast synchronization (a “changes” synchronization).The negotiation of the type of synchronization is performed withknowledge of the status of the anchors. As is known in the art, acomparison of the anchors will reveal whether the prior synchronizationwas completed or not. If it was interrupted, then the previous hostanchor from the device will not match the host's version of its previoushost anchor. Similarly, if the prior synchronization was interrupted orotherwise incomplete, the previous device anchor from the host will notmatch the previous device anchor at the device when the comparison isperformed at the device. The fact that there is a mismatch reveals aproblem with the prior synchronization which will cause either the hostor the device to request a complete (slow) synchronization type. Ananchor may be a value which is used by one or both systems in asynchronization process to determine the state of synchronization of thesystems. Typically, the fact that anchors match indicates that the lastsynchronization was successfully completed.

After the synchronization type has been negotiated, then in operation195 a synchronization begins by the host requesting either the changesif it is a fast sync or all records if it is a full or complete sync.Then in operation 197, the device sends the changes, or all recordsdepending on the type of synchronization, to the host. The hostacknowledges in 199 the transmission transactions resulting fromoperation 197. These acknowledgements may be performed at one or morelevels, including at a packet level or a record level, etc. A finalacknowledgement from the host will cause the device, in operation 201,to save its next device anchor at the device. As is known in the art, atthe end of a successful synchronization, all “next” anchors, such as anext device anchor which has been saved, will become a previous deviceanchor for use in a future synchronization. In at least one embodiment,the sync agent maintains for each class the previous host anchor as wellas the previous device anchor and will create the next device anchor fora particular data class during a synchronization operation. Similarly,in at least one embodiment, the sync client will maintain for each classa previous host anchor and a previous device anchor and may create thenext host anchor for use in the processes shown in FIGS. 5, 6A, 6B, 7A,and 7B. The device may acknowledge after operation 201 that it has savedits next device anchor in operation 201 which will cause the host inoperation 203 to save the next device anchor at the host and to committo a data store the changes or all records for the particular dataclass. This may occur by having the data class handler for a particularclass request sync services 141, or in other embodiments, a file systemsoftware component, to make changes to the database or store for thestructured data of the particular data class being synchronized. Then inoperation 205, the device indicates that it is ready to pull. Thisindicates to the host that the device is ready to accept either changesor all records depending on the synchronization type which wasnegotiated. In response, the host in operation 207 sends changes or allrecords, depending on the synchronization type, and the deviceacknowledges (operation 211) these data transmissions from operation 207at one or more levels of granularity as indicated above. Then, in oneembodiment, in operation 211, the device sends a map which indicates therelationship between identifiers (ID) for each record maintained at thehost relative to a corresponding ID maintained at the device for thesame record; in an alternative embodiment, the device may indicate themap information when it acknowledges the records received from the hostcomputer rather than as a separate message in the protocol. It will beappreciated that in alternative implementations, the same identifier maybe used, but at least in certain embodiments, it may be desirable tohave a distinct and separate ID maintained by the device for each recordwhich may be different than an ID maintained for that same record on thehost. Hence, a map or a relationship between the corresponding IDs maybe maintained. In this case, the map is created by the device andtransmitted to the host. In response to receiving the record ID map, thehost provisionally stores the map indicating the relationships between adevice ID for a record and the host ID for the same record. After allrecords have been sent to the device, and acknowledged from the device(and the record mappings have been provisionally stored on the host),the host transmits a commit request to the device in operation 213 whichwill cause the device to save either the changes or all records,depending on the synchronization type, from the current synchronizationsession to its data store for the current data class. Also, in operation215, the device will save the next host anchor. Then in operation 217,the device responds with an acknowledgement signal which will cause thehost in operation 219 to commit the pulled records and to save the nexthost anchor. The committing of pulled records also commits theprovisionally stored map indicating the relationship between a device IDfor a record and the host ID for the same record.

The method shown in FIG. 5 is repeated for each data class which is tobe synchronized. When all data classes have been synchronized, then thehost and the device can disconnect.

It will be appreciated that the method shown in FIG. 5 may beimplemented differently in alternative embodiments; for example, certainoperations may be omitted and the order of those operations may bedifferent. For example, the transmission of the version numbers may beomitted or the transmission of the ID map may be omitted. Furthermore,in an alternative embodiment, the order of operations may be alteredsuch that the device pulls changes or all records from the host firstbefore sending its changes or all records to the host. Furthermore, theconnection may be initiated by the device rather than the host and thedevice may perform certain operations that the host performs in themethod shown in FIG. 5.

FIGS. 6A and 6B show a flow chart which illustrates one embodiment ofthe operations performed by software components on a host, such as thesync client software component as well as a data class handler for aparticular data class being synchronized in a synchronization session.The discussion of FIGS. 6A, 6B, 7A, and 7B will assume that the softwarearchitecture shown in FIG. 4 is used in the particular embodiment beingdescribed for these methods. It will be appreciated that alternativesoftware architectures may also be used with these methods. Operation251 of FIG. 6A involves determining whether or not the device and thehost have been connected by the device link set of software components,such as the device link 107. This connection determination may beperformed by the sync client 111. Then in operation 253, it isdetermined whether there are any further data classes that still requiresynchronization for a current synchronization session. If none are left,then the device and the host may be disconnected. Then in operation 255,it is determined whether the device can synchronize the particular dataclass. This is similar to the automatic checking of support for aparticular data class that was described in connection with operation185 of FIG. 5. If the device cannot synchronize a particular data class,then synchronization for that data class is canceled, reverting back tooperation 253. Synchronization for a data class may not be supported ifthe device does not include a particular data source to supportsynchronization of the data class. Also, synchronization for the dataclass might be refused by the device if the data source cannot obtainresources that it needs to synchronize that data class (e.g. asdescribed herein, the application using the data in the data class mayrefuse to yield to requests to synchronize the data class). If it issupported, then in operation 257, the sync client obtains the versionnumber of the data source for the current data class being synchronized.This version number is compared to the version number of the data classhandler on the host to determine whether they match or are otherwisecompatible. This version checking has been described elsewhere and isfurther illustrated in FIGS. 8A and 8B. If the versions do not match andare not otherwise compatible, then a user interface in operation 261 maybe presented to the user to indicate the need or desirability to updateor upgrade one or more software components in order to allowsynchronization to be performed. If the versions match or are otherwisecompatible, then in operation 263, the anchors and synchronization typeare obtained from the device. This in at least one embodiment results inoperation 193 shown in FIG. 5. Then in operation 265, thesynchronization operation is started, and in operation 267, thesynchronization mode (e.g. one of complete, or changes only, or reset)is negotiated. If reset mode is negotiated in operation 267, then thisis detected in operation 269 which causes processing to branch tooperation 273 which tells the device to clear all records. If reset modehas not been selected, then the processing selects between either fastsynchronization mode as determined in operation 271 or full/completesynchronization mode, resulting in operation 275.

In operation 277, the host asks the device for changes in the currentdata set if the synchronization is a fast synchronization. The recordsare processed in operation 279 at the host and one or moreacknowledgement may be sent to the device. The processing of the recordsin operation 279 may be performed by the data class handler for thecurrent data class, and this processing may include “mutation” ofrecords and other changes to put the structured data into the properformat for storage in the data store for the current data class. Then,in one embodiment in operation 281, the host saves the next deviceanchor, and in operation 283 it asks sync services, such as the syncservices component 141, to prepare to pull, which involves transmittingchanges or all records to the device as the second part ofsynchronization from the host's side. The form of synchronization isdetermined in operation 285. If it is a fast synchronization, thenoperation 289 follows. In one embodiment, if it is a slow (complete)synchronization (e.g. a reset synchronization), then operation 287follows. One or more acknowledgments are received from the device; thehost may also receive with these acknowledgments from the device arecord ID map which shows the relationship between the device ID for arecord and the corresponding host ID for that record. This ID map issaved at the host by the data class handler for the current data class.Then in operation 293, the host sends a message to the device askingwhether it can commit to the changes. If not, then synchronization iscanceled, leaving the device anchors as they were previously, whichindicates an incomplete synchronization when the next synchronizationprocess begins. If the device can confirm commitment, it will do so inoperation 295, which includes receiving a message from the device thatit can commit to the changes or all records. At this point, in operation297, the host commits the pulled records by saving the ID map itreceived from the device and saving the next host anchor. In oneembodiment, saving of the ID map (recording remapping) is performed onlyif the commit succeeds and the host commits the pulled records and savesthe next host anchor. Then the host proceeds to the next data class byreverting back to operation 253 in FIG. 6A. It will be appreciated thatin alternative embodiments, some of the operations may be omitted oradditional operations may be performed and the sequence of operationsmay be changed relative to that shown in FIGS. 6A and 6B.

FIGS. 7A and 7B illustrate a method which may be performed by a devicein at least certain embodiments to perform synchronization at thedevice. This synchronization may employ the software architecture shownin FIG. 4 and may also follow the method shown in FIG. 5 for the deviceportion of FIG. 5. In operation 301, the device waits for a connectionwhich may be a wired connection or a wireless connection. Once it isconnected in operation 303, it tells the host that the device is readyfor synchronization. This operation 303 may be performed by the syncagent software component of FIG. 4. Then in operation 305, the devicewaits for a request to synchronize data in a particular data class ordisconnect. If in operation 307 it is found that it does not have a datasource for a particular data class, then synchronization for that dataclass will not be performed and operation 307 reverts back to operation305 for the next data class. Operation 307 represents one way in whichthe device supports automatic checking of support for a particular dataclass as described elsewhere in this disclosure. If a data source forthe data class is found, then a negotiation of version occurs inoperation 309. This negotiation of the version may occur between thedata source on the device and the data class handler on the host asdescribed elsewhere and as shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B. After the versionhas been negotiated in operation 309, the device obtains anchors fromthe host and based on those anchors, as described herein, determines thesynchronization mode (e.g. full/slow, fast/changes only, or reset). Theoperations after operation 311 select one of the modes and process thedata accordingly. If reset mode has been selected, then in operation 315all records are marked as cleared. It will be understood that in atleast certain embodiments, the data is not cleared immediately ordeleted immediately but rather is marked to be cleared. If fastsynchronization is determined to have been selected in operation 317,then processing proceeds to operation 321 in which changes are sent forthe current data class from the device to the host. If slowsynchronization has been selected, then processing proceeds fromoperation 317 to operation 319 in which all records are sent from thedevice. After sending all records or sending changes only from thedevice or marking the records to be cleared, operation 323 saves thenext device anchor at the device and clears history at the device. Clearhistory refers to the change history managed, in at least oneembodiment, by the application on the device and the Data Source. Aschanges are made by the user in an application (e.g. Contacts orCalendar application), the application notes these changes in a ChangeHistory which can be consulted by the Sync Agent's Data Source if it cando a “fast sync”. The Data Source gets the change history (list ofchanges since last synchronization) so it knows what records werechanged (and can only send over the changed records instead of allrecords—in a “fast sync”), and after the synchronization (or when doinga reset or slow sync) it clears the change history (the list ofchanges), so the application can then start building a new list ofchanges for the next synchronization. Note that there may be a historycursor used to coordinate between the application and the data source,so the data source will only clear history up to the point it usedduring the synchronization, and the application can add new entries tothe history after that, but those history entries after the point usedduring synchronization will not erroneously be cleared by the DataSource after synchronization. Change History may be maintained byContacts, Calendars, and Notes applications in at least one embodiment.Processing proceeds from operation 323 to operation 325 in which thedevice sends a message that it is ready to pull data from the host. Thesynchronization mode is determined in operation 327. If a slow/fullsynchronization is to be performed, then all records in operation 329are received from the host. On the other hand, if a fast synchronizationis to be performed, then changes from the host are received for thecurrent data class and the device sends back one or more acknowledgmentsto the host confirming receipt of the data. One or more acknowledgementsmay also be transmitted from the device to the host for the recordsreceived in operation 329. Then in operation 333, the device creates aremapping for added records and sends device identifiers for thoserecords to the host. This remapping is typically performed by the datasource for the current data class and is transmitted to the data classhandler on the host for the current data class, which causes the savingof the mapping between host IDs for a particular record and device IDsfor the same record. Then in operation 335, the sync client on the hostasks the sync agent on the device whether the device can commit to thechanges. If not, the data source causes a rollback to the prior versionof the structured data by not saving the changes from the currentsynchronization session and, after operation 337, processing proceeds tothe next data class, which in one embodiment may mean that processingreturns back to operation 305. If the device can commit to the changes,then operation 339 is performed in which the device saves the next hostanchor and commits the transaction by saving the changes or all recordsto its store for the current data class and sends a message to the hostthat the device has committed.

FIGS. 8A and 8B will now be referred to in connection with embodimentswhich utilize version identifiers for the data source and the data hosthandler in determining whether and how to synchronize for a particulardata class the structured data on both the host and the device. After async agent on a device and a sync client on a host have begunsynchronizing, as in operation 401, the method of FIG. 8A determineswhether there is another data class that needs to be synchronized andidentifies that data class. As noted elsewhere, either the sync agent orthe sync client may be responsible for selecting the order ofsynchronization among the various data classes. If there are no dataclasses left to synchronize, then the synchronization session is endedand the device and host are disconnected for purposes of synchronizationin operation 405. If there are additional data classes to besynchronized, then processing proceeds to operation 407 in which thenext data class begins synchronization by initializing the data classhandler on the host for the selected data class and sends that dataclass handler version number for the current data class to the device.Alternatively, the data source on the device may send its version numberto the host. In operation 409, the data source initializes itself on thedevice and compares its version number on the device to the data classhandler version number on the host. Then in operation 411, based on thecomparison of the version numbers, it is decided how and whether tosynchronize and whether or not an alert needs to be presented to theuser to update or upgrade one or more data source software components ordata class handler components on the user's device and/or host. In themethod of FIG. 8A, it is assumed that one system or the other systemmakes a decision in operation 411 based upon the set of versionidentifiers which is either on the device or the host but not both. FIG.8B represents an alternative implementation in which both systems haveboth version numbers and can perform the comparison and arrive at thesame decision. If a decision was made to synchronize in operation 411,then in operation 413 the synchronizing is performed for the currentdata class, and FIGS. 5, 6A, 6B, 7A, and 7B provide examples of howsynchronization can be performed for a current data class. Aftersynchronization is completed, other operations are performed, such assaving anchors for the current data class in operation 415, and theprocess of FIG. 8A reverts back to operation 403 which has beendescribed previously. It will be appreciated that alternativeembodiments of FIG. 8A may involve fewer operations or more operationsand may alter the sequence of those operations in a manner which isdifferent than that shown in FIG. 8A.

FIG. 8B shows an embodiment which utilizes version identifiers for eachdata source software component on a device and for each data classhandler software component on the host. In this embodiment, both thehost and the device will receive both version numbers and perform thecomparison and then decide how and whether to synchronize for thecurrent data class. After the sync agent on the device and the syncclient on the host have begun synchronizing in operation 425, it isdetermined in operation 427 whether there are any data classes that needto be synchronized and to select the next data class forsynchronization. One or both of the sync agent and the sync client mayperform this function in operation 427. If there are no further dataclasses to synchronize, then, in operation 429, synchronization is endedand the device and host may be disconnected under software control. Ifthere is a next data class to synchronize, then, in operation 431, thedata class handler for the current data class on the host is initializedand it causes its version number to be sent to the device. A data sourcesoftware component for the same current data class on the device is alsoinitialized and its version number is sent to the host. The host and thedevice each compare the two version numbers and decide, based upon thehigher version number, how and whether to synchronize for the currentdata class. If it is decided to not synchronize for the current dataclass, one or both systems may display or otherwise present an alert tothe user suggesting the user to update and/or upgrade a softwarecomponent or several software components on at least one of their deviceand the host. In this case, synchronization for the current data classwill not occur and processing reverts back to operation 427. If, on theother hand, the higher version number software component decides that itis compatible with a lower version number software component on theother system, then synchronization can be performed. Also, if theversion numbers match, then synchronization can also be performed. Inoperation 435, synchronization is performed and then in operation 437synchronization is completed by, for example, saving anchors andprocessing other data for the current data class and then processingreverts back to operation 427. In some embodiments, the system (host ordevice) with the higher version may use the version information from theother system in order to take any action necessary to synchronize datato and from the system with the old version. For example, the “oldsystem” might use a different name for some properties, and the systemwith the higher version can know this and translate the name back andforth. The older system might represent some properties differently, andif they can be translated back and forth the system with the higherversion can do that translation coming and going.

Another aspect of at least certain embodiments described herein relatesto a manner in which a software layer for creating and maintaining adata connection for one or more services may be used for each of thoseservices and may provide an interface to one or more stream handlerswhich implement transport protocols to send structured data, files andother data through a physical interface, such as a wired USB interfaceor a Bluetooth wireless interface or other wireless interfaces, such asa WiFi interface or a wireless cellular telephone interface. The samelayer may also provide for encrypted authentication, and thisauthentication may be a two-way authentication which establishes anauthenticated connection throughout the transmission back and forthbetween a device and a host through the device link connection layer.The software architecture shown in FIG. 4 shows a device link 107 whichmay be implemented in the manner shown in FIG. 10 which illustrates asoftware architecture in which layers of software interface with eachother through messages or calls at the interface between the softwarelayers. The software architecture 450 is shown as having four layerswhich include a device link connection layer 457, a stream handler layer459, and stream libraries layer 465 as well as an upper layer for one ormore applications or services, such as a backup application or serviceor a configuration application or service or synchronization servicesprovided by the sync client software component and the sync agentsoftware component described herein. The sync client and sync agentsoftware components 454 provide the synchronization functions andoperations described with respect to FIGS. 4-8B. The applicationsoftware component 452 may be a backup application which backs up data,including data which has not been synchronized, or alternatively aconfiguration application or one or more other types of applicationswhich need to make a connection in a secure and authenticated mannerthrough the device link connection layer 457. The stream handler layer459 includes one or more stream handlers. In the particular embodimentshown in FIG. 10, there is a USB stream handler 461 and a Bluetoothstream handler 462 and a TCP stream handler 463. These different streamhandlers implement the communication protocols and handle the streamover the different interface represented by USB or Bluetooth or TCP(which may be a WiFi or other wireless interface which utilizes TCP/IP).The stream library layer 465 is called upon by the stream handler totransmit and receive data through the particular protocol represented bythe stream handler. For example, the USB stream handler may make callsto a particular group of stream libraries in order to transmit data overa USB interface. Similarly, the Bluetooth stream handler 462 may makecalls to one or more libraries in the libraries layer 465 in order totransmit and receive data through a wireless Bluetooth interface. Thedevice link connection layer 457 provides a unified interface to all thestream handlers in the stream handlers layer 459 by making calls to theappropriate stream handler based upon the currently used physicalinterface to connect the device to the host. The device link connectionlayer 457 includes both connection functionality and authenticationand/or encryption functionality represented by the sublayers 456 and458, respectively. The sublayer 456 is responsible for selecting theparticular physical interface and establishing a connection through theinterface by authenticating, as described below, the host to the deviceand the device to the host, and at the same time by invoking aparticular stream handler for the selected interface which in turninvokes the appropriate stream libraries to create packets or other datastructures for transmission over the physical interface. The device linkconnection layer 457 may be responsive to either a user input tosynchronize or back up or configure a device, or may be responsive to anautomatic discovery of the device through a technology such as Bonjourfrom Apple Computer, Inc. For example, docking a device in a dock whichis coupled to the host may cause Bonjour to recognize that a device hasbeen docked to a host and that the user may desire to synchronize thedevice. This may cause a display of a user interface asking the user ifthe device should be synchronized, or alternatively, the device may beautomatically synchronized as a result of placing it in the dock. Thiswill then cause the sync agent and sync client to begin asynchronization process as described herein and to also make calls tothe device link connection layer in order to transmit data between thehost and the device. Calls made by the sync client or the sync agent inthe process of synchronization (or calls made by an application such asa backup application 452) result in the device link connection layer 457making software based calls or sending other types of messages to thestream handlers layer 459, which in turn call particular libraries inthe stream libraries layer 465. With an architecture such as that shownin FIG. 10, the synchronization software components, such as the syncclient and the sync agent components, are isolated from the streamhandlers. Thus, a sync agent software component and a sync clientsoftware component do not need to implement such handlers. Further, thedevice connection layer provides a uniform interface which authenticatesthe device to the host across three different physical interfaces andmany different stream handlers; this isolates the synchronizationsoftware components as well as the other application components from theauthentication software. Hence, a developer of a synchronization clientor a synchronization agent or a data source for a data class or a dataclass handler for a data class do not need to recreate code (e.g.software program) to implement stream handlers or to implementauthentication or encryption or to implement software to create theconnection between a device and a host. Furthermore, by integrating theauthentication and the encryption layer with the device connectionlayer, all services which use the device connection layer, such as thesynchronization services or the application services 452 (e.g. backupapplications, configure applications, diagnostic applications, etc.),obtain the benefit of automatic, two-way authentication, in at leastcertain embodiments, as a result of making calls to the device linkconnection layer 457 which in turn causes authentication and/orencryption to any one of the possible physical interfaces and theircorresponding stream handlers. The use of the authentication andencryption layer 458 at a layer of abstraction between the transport andthe protocol (stream handler) layers makes the architecture useable bymore than just synchronization.

In one embodiment, the architecture shown in FIG. 10 provides a numberof useful features. DeviceLink 457 may handle all authentication andencryption automatically for the application (the application may merelyhave to indicate where to find the certificates used by the securitycode). Further, the DeviceLink connection authenticates both the deviceand the host. DeviceLink 457 may provide asynchronous behavior for allstream handlers (transports) doing I/O between the device and host, sothe transport just has to read/write synchronously, and DeviceLink 457manages the thread control to make it appear as asynchronous to theapplication, so the application never blocks reading and writing—theapplication (such as Sync Client on the host or Sync Agent on thedevice) is notified of incoming data (and other related things, such asconnection/disconnection) via callbacks. DeviceLink 457 does all theauthorization at the top of the stream (transport) layer, so alltransport types which may be plugged in get authentication andencryption without needing to implement anything special. In oneembodiment, Device Link 457 may have file transfer facilities builtdirectly into DeviceLink's protocol. This may be used for backup, andother tools (and can be used in future applications based on device link457). The protocol of DeviceLink 457 may include a function to doefficient transfer of a file in pieces, so that a file does not have tobe read completely in memory at one time. Further, DeviceLink 457 mayprovide Unix style “stat” information (by itself, or with the file),such as the size of the file and the last modified date, so theapplications can keep track of the file's state to tell if it needs tocopy it or not (this may be useful for incremental backups). Onceconnected via DeviceLink 457, an application can use the protocol torequest information about a file, and to request the file itself. Thefile is sent in chunks to avoid reading a huge file into memory all atonce (on both sides). DeviceLink 457 may provide some default behaviorwhen the file is requested to just get the file and send it (so theapplication doesn't need to respond to the callback for the request andtake explicit action), although the application can respond if it wantsto do custom handling (and use its own code if it wants). Similarly,when receiving pieces of a file, a default callback handles simplywriting the file to disk, but that may be overridden in someembodiments. DeviceLink 457 may provide a “white list” of which files(or directories) can be requested, and which files or directories can bewritten into, so the two sides can control access. Other file copyingsolutions on the device may also exist independently of DeviceLink 457;for example, a media player (e.g. iTunes) may provide file copyingfacilities; however, DeviceLink 457 provides considerable infrastructure(authentication, asynchronous interface, part of the existing DeviceLinkprotocol for ease of use by an application), and has more functionalitythen a simple file copy API (it has the white lists, and defaulthandling which can be overridden, and chunks the files).

An example of a sequence of operations which involve the use of devicelink connection layer 457 will now be provided. In one embodiment, asynchronization initiator (for example, either Sync Agent 109 on thedevice or Sync Client 111 on the host) will be launched (e.g. by theuser or by the system, such as by a Bonjour discovery process). Theinitiator will then try to connect to the other side. The initiator,through DeviceLink connection layer 457, will establish a basic(unauthenticated) connection, which causes the launching of the otherapplication (e.g. if Sync Client 111 initiates the process then basicconnection may cause the launching of Sync Agent 109 on the device;conversely, if Sync Agent 109 initiates the process then basicconnection may cause the launching of Sync Client 111 on the host). Atthis point, the DeviceLink connection layer 457 attempts to perform atwo-way authentication process, described further herein; if thatprocess succeeds, then an authenticated connection between the host andthe device has been created and the synchronization initiator gets acallback from the DeviceLink connection layer 457 that the connectionwas made and the connectee application (that was launched by the basicconnection) gets a notification that an incoming connection was made;for example, if authentication is successful and if Sync Client 111 wasthe initiator, then Sync Client 111 will receive the callback and SyncAgent 109 is the connectee application. If authentication fails, theinitiator receives a connection failed callback and there is noconnection, and the connectee will normally exit after some timeinterval.

FIG. 11 illustrates an alternative example of the operations of a devicelink connection layer 457. In operation 501, a connection isestablished. This may be performed by discovering the device. Forexample, Bonjour may be used to discover the device, either whenconnected through a wireless connection or a wired connection to thehost. The device link connection layer may then decide which interfaceto use, and there may be a priority associated with each of thoseinterfaces based upon speed, security, and convenience. For example, USBmay be the highest priority connection interface followed by WiFi andfinally Bluetooth, in at least certain embodiments. After an interfacehas been selected, then in operation 503 the device link connectionlayer performs authentication between the host and the device. In atleast certain embodiments, this authentication is two-way, meaning thateach of the device and the host perform authentication operations withcertificates created upon initialization. FIG. 12 shows an example ofthe collection of certificates that the device and host may have afterinitialization of both in a manner described herein. In certainembodiments, authentication may be optional. After authentication isperformed, then in operation 505 the device connection layer or othersoftware may cause the launching of a sync client and sync agent inorder to begin synchronization. While synchronization is occurring, thedevice link connection layer maintains the connection, which may bemaintained as an authenticated connection, during the synchronizationprocess of structured data in operation 507. In alternative embodiments,the method of FIG. 11 may be used with non-synchronization services,such as the backup application or configure application 452. In thiscase, the connection may be maintained, and it may be an authenticatedconnection during those services. After synchronization or otherservices are complete, the device link connection layer may disconnectthe device from the host in software, even though the device may stillbe in the dock of the host. In other words, the software connection istorn down as a result of ending the synchronization process or otherprocess which invoked the device link connection layer 457.

FIG. 12 shows an example of data structures maintained at both a deviceand a host after performing an initialization of an authenticationsystem which provides two-way authentication between the device and thehost. The authentication is encrypted with public key/private keycryptography, thereby providing a high level of security to allow adevice to be synchronized to a host through a wireless interface whilemaintaining sufficient security so that the user can be assured thatother hosts will not be able to obtain access to data on either thedevice being synchronized or the host. Moreover, this two-wayauthentication may be used for file transfers between the device and thehost and for other services (e.g. diagnostic services) which utilize theauthenticated connection. In order to provide adequate security, thedevice may be required to be connected by a wired interface initiallyand the user may be asked, by the display of the device, to enter avalue, such as a large number or other character string, into the host.Alternatively, the value may be displayed on the display of the host andthe user may be required to enter that value or character string intothe device. Following this operation, the device may create a privateand public key pair and save its private key. The host may perform asimilar operation to create a private key of the host and acorresponding public key of the host. The host may also create acertificate for a self-created certificate authority and may furthercreate a public key/private key pair for the certificate authority. Eachof the device and the host may include an identifier which may be aunique identifier for each system, and each of these identifiers may betransmitted to the other side (device ID transmitted to host and host IDtransmitted to device) and this identifier is mapped to the savedprivate key of a particular system. In the example shown in FIG. 12, thesaved private key of the device 529 for its host is mapped to the host'sID which is provided by the host. Similarly, the device's ID 535 forthat device is mapped to the private key of the host 531. The host maycreate a certificate and sign it with a certificate authority using thehost's public key, optionally with additional information. The host mayalso create a device certificate and sign it with the certificateauthority certificate and then may transmit these certificates (537,541, and 545) to the device. These certificates can be used in knowntechniques, such as a secure socket layer handshake, to providetransport layer security and to provide a two-way authentication betweenthe device and the host. This authentication may be maintained duringthe entire connection, which may include a synchronization operation andother operations utilizing this authenticated connection. In oneembodiment, as shown in FIG. 12, the device has a mapping between a hostidentifier and the following: Device private key used for that host,device certificate used for that host, host certificate, hostcertificate authority certificate (used in the self-signedauthentication). Similarly, the host has a mapping from a device ID tothe following: Host private key used for the device, host certificateused for that device, device certificate, host certificate authoritycertificate used with that device. The device has a separate deviceprivate key for any host it communicates with (the private key maps tothe device certificate used with that host, and the device has onedevice certificate per host), and there is a similar arrangement on thehost side, as there is a separate private key host certificate pair perdevice.

FIGS. 13A and 13B relate to an aspect of at least certain embodimentsdescribed herein. This aspect involves the ability for one or both ofthe device and the host to have both non-synchronization processes andsynchronization processes occurring concurrently in that they are bothbeing executed by one or more processing systems. Both sets of processesor threads may be in different address spaces. This allows a user of adevice to operate the device while it is being synchronized, andsimilarly allows a user of the host to operate the host while the hostis synchronizing with the device. For example, if both the device andthe host have these capabilities, then a user on the device may beviewing a calendar program which displays a calendar of the user showingevents and possibly To Do items for the user while at the same time asynchronization service is synchronizing the calendar data on the devicewith calendar data on the host. This synchronization may be implementedusing the software architecture shown in FIG. 4 and may further use themethods shown in FIGS. 5-7B. Similarly, the user may use an applicationprogram on the host to access and edit the calendar data or otherstructured data for other applications while at the same time the hostis performing synchronization operations on structured data in one ormore stores of structured data. The synchronization process may beimplemented on the host using the architecture shown in FIG. 4 and usingthe methods shown in FIGS. 5-7B, which have been described above.

The non-synchronization threads or processes may be user-level ornon-user-level threads or processes which are not synchronization tasks.The synchronization threads or processes are synchronization tasksperformed by one or more synchronization software components such asSync Agent 109 or Sync Client 111 or other synchronization softwarecomponents. The concurrent execution of the non-synchronization threadsor processes and the synchronization threads or processes may occur onone or both of the device and the host. Operation 575 in FIG. 13A showsthat non-synchronization threads or processes may be performed on boththe device and the host. In operation 577, execution of synchronizationsoftware begins on, in this embodiment, both the device and the hostwhile execution of non-synchronization threads or processes continues onboth the device and the host. In operation 579, a synchronizationsoftware component, such as the Sync Agent 109, attempts to acquire alock on a store for a data class which is to be synchronized. Sync Agent109 in one embodiment may do this by invoking the Unix FLOCK call tolock the file containing, for example, the bookmarks to be synchronized.Also in one embodiment, if a synchronization software component accessesan SQlite database, if may not need to acquire a lock as the databasemay handle this function itself. In one embodiment, Contacts, Calendarsand Notes may be stored in databases which handle their own locking at alower level. Also in one embodiment, Sync Client may not attempt toacquire any locks. If the lock is acquired, as determined in operation580, then synchronizing is begun in operation 591. On the other hand, ifthe lock is not acquired then the synchronization component, inoperation 581, may notify the application using the data class that thesynchronization component requests the lock and the synchronizationcomponent waits for a response. The application may receive a responseindicating the lock is acquired, in which case processing proceeds tooperation 591; otherwise, if the lock is not acquired after thenotification, the processing proceeds to operation 583 in whichsynchronizing of the current data class is canceled and operation 579follows if further data classes need to be synchronized (otherwise theprocess ends). If, while synchronizing is being performed, the userattempts to change the store for the data class being synchronized, thesystem (e.g. either the device or the host) may present, in operation593, an alert to the user that the system cannot accept changes untilsynchronizing is completed. After synchronization for the current dataclass is completed, in operation 595, the lock is released andprocessing proceeds to the next data class, if one still remains to besynchronized, or synchronization is finished.

It will be appreciated that in alternative embodiments, only one of thehost and the device may support concurrent operation ofnon-synchronization processes and synchronization processes.

Another aspect of at least certain embodiments described herein relateto methods and systems for synchronizing bookmarks or favorites on oneor both of the device and the host when synchronizing structured data.The bookmarks of various web browsers on each of the device and the hostmay be collected together and stored in an intermediate or canonicaltopology which is used to synchronize the bookmarks and collections ofbookmarks on at least two web browsers, one being on the device and onebeing on the host. In certain embodiments, there may be multiple webbrowsers operating or used by a user on the host and one web browserused on the device. The intermediate topology collects the variousbookmarks from the different web browsers, aggregates those into thecanonical topology, and then uses that topology to synchronize thebookmark structures for each of the web browsers on such a system. Inaddition, the synchronizing may also include converting between oneformat (e.g. a URL data type to another format (e.g. a stringrepresenting the URL) for each of the one or more bookmarks in each webbrowser.

The synchronization of bookmarks on different browsers may require amechanism to convert or otherwise deal with the difference in the formatof the hierarchy of bookmarks. For example, different web browsers havedifferent data structures for maintaining a hierarchy of a collection ofbookmarks. Each of these data structures may be considered a topology.FIGS. 14A, 14B, 14C, and 14D provide examples of those differenttopologies. The example shown in FIG. 14A may be the topology of the webbrowser known as Safari from Apple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, whilethe topology shown in FIG. 14B may be the topology of Internet Explorerfrom Microsoft Corporation, and the topology shown in FIG. 14C may bethe topology of Firefox, and the topology shown in FIG. 14D may be thetopology of a web browser on a device, such as a handheld computer withwireless cellular telephone capabilities or other wireless interfaces,such as WiFi, which may be used to access the Internet and browse theInternet. The topologies shown in FIGS. 14A, 14B, 14C, and 14D representthe topology prior to synchronization among the web browsers. Thetopology 625 includes a bookmarks menu 627 and a bookmarks bar 629 aswell as one or more folders 631 which may be arranged in a hierarchyincluding folders 632 and 633. The topology 637 in FIG. 14B does notinclude a bookmarks menu but does include a bookmarks bar 638. Anotherdifference between the topology 637 and the topology 625 is theexistence of bookmarks at a top level in the topology, such as thebookmarks 639 and 640. In the topology 625, there is no support forbookmarks at the top level; in other words, the bookmarks must be withina folder or in the bookmarks menu or in the bookmarks bar. In contrast,the topology 637 supports bookmarks at the top level, such as thebookmarks 639 and 640. The topology 637 also includes a collection ofone or more folders which may be arranged in a hierarchy, such asfolders 641 and folders 642 and 643. The topology 651 is similar to thetopology 625 except that bookmarks at the top level, such as bookmarks639 and 654, may be included in the topology 651 but they are notincluded or allowed in the topology 625. The topology 651 includes abookmarks menu 652, a bookmarks bar 653, bookmarks at the top level,such as bookmarks 639 and 654, and a collection of folders containingbookmarks, such as folders 656 and 657 and 658.

FIGS. 15A, 15B, 15C, and 15D show how the bookmark topologies appearafter a synchronization between the collections of bookmarks for thedifferent web browsers. The designation “A” as been added to eachreference numeral to indicate that it is the same element except aftersynchronization. For example, the bookmarks menu 627A is the same as thebookmarks menu 627 except that it may include additional bookmarks as aresult of the synchronization operation. It can be seen thatsynchronization has caused the addition of a top level folder 675 whichmay contain top level bookmarks from other topologies, such as thebookmarks 639 and 640 and 654. Hence, the synchronization process hasadded another folder to the structure 625A to accommodate bookmarks fortop level bookmarks in other web browsers. Similarly, the topology 637Ahas now included, after synchronization, a bookmarks menu 676 whichincorporates the bookmarks found in the bookmarks menu 627 and 652 fromthe other two web browsers. The bookmarks data structure shown in FIG.15D has been modified to include a top level folder 677 in order toaccommodate bookmarks at the top level from other web browsers. Hence,in the example shown in FIGS. 15A, 15B, 15C, and 15D, a synchronizationprocess among multiple web browsers has resulted in the addition ofbookmarks and folders and other data structures to the differenttopologies in order to synchronize the bookmarks among the different webbrowsers. This synchronization was able to occur even though thetopologies for the bookmark structures of the different web browsers aredifferent. The synchronizing which occurred is a form of synchronizationwhich does not delete a bookmark in one web browser if it is not presentin another. This synchronization may be implemented through anintermediate topology, such as a canonical topology. An example of sucha topology is shown in FIG. 16A along with a topology for a host's webbrowser bookmark structure and a device's web browser bookmarkstructure. A mapping relationship is also shown between the canonicaltopology and each of the other two topologies 637A and 665A. A mappingrelationship is shown by a line with an arrow at each end. For example,bookmarks in the bookmark bar 638A are mapped to bookmarks in thebookmark bar 692 in the canonical topology. Similarly, top levelbookmarks 639 and 640 are mapped to the top level folder 693 in thecanonical topology. Similarly, folders and bookmarks within thosefolders 641A are mapped to folders 694 in the canonical topology 690.Bookmarks in the bookmark menu 691 of the canonical topology are mappedto other bookmarks 669A. This mapping relationship allows conversionduring synchronization from one set of bookmarks on a device or a hostto another set of bookmarks in another web browser on the device or thehost.

FIGS. 16B and 16C illustrate two methods for synchronizing bookmarks.Operation 701 of FIG. 16B maps at least one bookmark from at least oneweb browser on a host to at least one of an intermediate topology or adevice topology for bookmarks. For example, the top level bookmarks 639and 640 may be mapped to the intermediate topology 690 or directlymapped to the device topology 665A. In operation 703, at least onebookmark from at least one web browser on the device is mapped to atleast one of an intermediate topology or the host's topology forbookmarks. An example of this mapping may be the mapping which occurs inbookmarks added to the top level folder in the topology 665A, which inturn are mapped to the top level bookmarks in the topology 637A. Themapping, in operation 701 and 703, may be implemented by a table orother data structure which shows the association between the differenttopologies such that synchronization may be performed in operation 705.In that operation, bookmarks are synchronized on a device with bookmarkson the host. As noted in operation 705, the device's bookmark topologymay be different from the host's topology, and different than theintermediate topology as is shown in FIG. 16A.

The method of FIG. 16C assumes that an intermediate topology is used andthat there is a mapping between each of the web browsers and theintermediate topology. It will be understood that at least in certainembodiments, the host or the device may maintain a complete datastructure of all bookmarks in the intermediate topology which can thenbe used to update the bookmark structure of each web browser. Inoperation 715, first bookmarks in a first topology for a first webbrowser on a host are mapped to an intermediate topology which may bemaintained on the host or the device. In operation 717, second bookmarksin a second topology for a second web browser on the host are alsomapped into the intermediate topology. Then in operation 719, the firstbookmarks and the second bookmarks on the host are synchronized withthird bookmarks on a device which is coupled to the host during thesynchronizing period. In this particular method, two different webbrowsers having two different topologies on the host are synchronizedwith a web browser on the device. In at least certain embodiments, thedevice's topology for its web browser may be different than the firsttopology and different than the second topology and the intermediatetopology.

In an embodiment, the system may perform this synchronizationautomatically without user interaction and without requesting any inputfrom a user. While this may reduce the complexity required to configuresuch a system, it may be desirable to present one or more userinterfaces which allow a user to set preference settings or othersettings which indicate how the synchronization of bookmarks is to beperformed among two or more web browsers. The user interface 725 shownin FIG. 16D allows a user to select one option from three possibleoptions by selecting one of the three check boxes 727, 729, and 731. Thecheck mark shown in the check box 727 indicates that a user has selectedthe first option which synchronizes the device's bookmarks to the host'sbookmarks and the host's bookmarks to the device's bookmarks; this isconsidered a two-way synchronization. The other two options are one-wayonly synchronizations. In particular, if the user had selected check box729, then synchronization would be performed only to synchronize fromthe device's bookmarks to the host's bookmarks. If the user had selectedcheck box 731, then synchronization would be performed from the host'sbookmarks to the device's bookmarks only.

FIG. 16E illustrates another user interface which allows a user toselect all web browsers for synchronization or only selected ones of theweb browsers. If the user selects the check box 737, thensynchronization is performed for all web browsers on both the device andthe host. The interface 735 shows that the user has selected the secondoption by selecting the check box 739. In this case, the system willsynchronize bookmarks with bookmarks of selected web browsers on thehost, and the user has selected buttons 742 and 743 but has not selectedbuttons 741 and 744. Hence, bookmarks maintained by Firefox andbookmarks maintained by Safari on the host will be synchronized withbookmarks on the device as a result of these selections in the userinterface 735. The selection of the button 744 will cause an applicationbrowser window to appear to display applications on the host to allowthe user to pick selected applications from the list to include in theset of web browsers to be synchronized on the host.

The user interface 750 shown in FIG. 16F allows the user to limitsynchronization to selected folders. This option has not been selectedas can be seen by the absence of a check mark in the check box 751. Ifthe user does select check box 751, then one or more browser windows maybe caused to appear to allow a user to browse through windows containinglists of various bookmarks and bookmark folders, and bookmark bars on asystem. It will be appreciated that each of these user interfaces may beused individually or in combination to allow a user to control howbookmarks are synchronized in at least certain embodiments describedherein.

FIG. 17 relates to another aspect of at least certain embodimentsdescribed herein. This aspect relates to the synchronization of setupinformation for one or more electronic message system accounts, such asan email account or an instant messaging account. This synchronizationmay be performed in a one-way direction from the host to the devicerather than in both directions. Moreover, in at least certainembodiments, modifications made to an account setup information on thehost may not be reflected on a previously set up account which has beenestablished and is existing on the device.

The flow chart of FIG. 17 provides one example of how accountinformation may be synchronized. FIG. 18 shows a memory structure of thedevice and a memory structure of the host with respect to email accountsetup information. The method of FIG. 17 may begin in operation 781 inwhich a data processing system receives setup information for an emailaccount (or for other types of electronic message systems). Thisinformation is received on the device and may be for an account “A.” Thesetup information 791 may be an example, in FIG. 18, of such setupinformation. In operation 783, the host may receive information to setup an email account which may be account “B” and is shown as setupinformation 795 in FIG. 18. Synchronization may occur after establishinga connection between the device and the host as in operation 785. Duringthe synchronization operation 787, account B, which was established onthe host, may be synchronized as a new account on the device. Thesynchronization may be a one-way synchronization in at least oneembodiment; this is represented by the arrow 790 shown in FIG. 18. Inthis case, the email account which was set up on the device is notsynchronized back to the host. In this embodiment, the device ends uphaving a superset of the email accounts. This may be desirable in caseswhere the user prefers greater privacy on the device than the host, forexample.

It will be appreciated that in alternative embodiments, the direction ofsynchronization may be reversed such that it is from the device to thehost and not from the host to the device. In this case, any account setup on the device will be synchronized and established on the host, butnot vice versa.

FIGS. 19, 20, and 21 relate to another aspect of at least certainembodiments described herein. This aspect relates to how notes may besynchronized. In at least certain embodiments, a note, which istypically a text freeform document, may contain other information, suchas image data, audio data, movie data, and even To Do items. The To Doitems may be embedded within the note and may be created as part ofcreating the note. When the note is synchronized, the To Do item is alsosynchronized in a separate To Do database in at least certainembodiments. Further information in connection with notes havingembedded To Do items may be found in co-pending U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 11/499,009, filed on Aug. 4, 2006, and entitled “Methods andSystems for Managing To Do Items or Notes or Electronic Messages;” thisapplication is hereby incorporated herein by reference.

FIG. 19 shows one exemplary method for synchronizing a note whichcontains one or more embedded To Do's on either a host or a device. Thenote itself may be treated as one data class, while the To Do item willbe treated as, in at least certain embodiments, another data class. Ifthe architecture of FIG. 4 is utilized, then a portion of the note issynchronized for the data source and the data class handler for the notestore while another portion of the note is synchronized with anotherdata store and another data class handler for the To Do data class. Inan alternative embodiment, the note with an embedded To Do may besynchronized to merely one database or store rather than two through theuse of only one pair of a data store and a data class handler. Inoperation 811, the note with an embedded To Do is stored on a host or adevice. This will cause the updating of a To Do database on the host (orthe device) in operation 813. When synchronization occurs in operation815, the note database on the device is synchronized and the To Dodatabase on the device is also synchronized. If the note was stored onthe device in operation 811, then the note database on the host issynchronized and the To Do database on the host is synchronized inoperation 815. In this manner, different parts of the note aresynchronized to two different data stores.

FIG. 20 provides an example of how an embedded note may be created. Inoperation 825, a system, such as a device or a host, receives content ofthe note. This content may be a freeform text document but may alsoinclude image data, such as a picture or other graphics. Then inoperation 827, the system receives a selection of a command to create aTo Do item from at least a portion of the content of the note. Thisselection may occur, in certain embodiments, before receiving thecontent. Then in operation 829, a To Do item is added to a To Dodatabase. This new To Do item may optionally be presented to the user ina To Do window or other user interface item.

FIG. 21 shows an example of how a note or other type of structured datamay be synchronized or not depending on a filter. In the case of a note,the filter may be the size of the note to prevent the systems fromattempting to synchronize a very large note which contains either a lotof text or image data. In operation 841, a connection is established tosynchronize notes on a device to notes on a host. In operation 843, itis determined if a synchronization filter for notes has been set, eitherby the system, such as a default, or by the user. As synchronization isperformed, operation 845 is also performed for each note which is to besynchronized between the host and the device. This operation involvesdetermining whether or not the note satisfies the filter. In oneembodiment, the filter may be a maximum size of the note. If the noteexceeds the maximum size, then it will not be synchronized or only textportions will be synchronized. This is shown in operation 849. If thenote does satisfy the filter, then it is synchronized as shown inoperation 847. This is repeated for each note which is to besynchronized. In another embodiment, rather than not synchronizinglarger notes at all, a method may synchronize text and/or other smallportions of such larger notes and include an indicator or marker in thesynchronized copy (which has been reduced in size by the removal of theimage or other data) that a portion of the original note (e.g. the imagedata portion) has not been included in the synchronized copy. In thisway, synchronization of at least a portion of larger notes can still beperformed while filtering out, in the synchronization process itself,the larger parts of the note.

Another aspect of at least certain embodiments relate to transformationsof data as part of the synchronization process between the host and thedevice. Examples of these transformations include: converting data typessuch as a URL to a text string (e.g., in synchronizing bookmarks) orconverting date formats for calendar events or converting contactimages, etc. In each case, the device and the host may use a differentformat; for example, the device may use a first date format for calendarevents and the host may use a second date format for calendar events. Inone embodiment, the Data Class Handler for a data class on the host mayperform the transformations for that data class for both the host andthe device as noted in Table D. In other embodiments, the Data Source onthe device for a data class and the Data Class Handler on the host forthat data class may share the tasks of transforming between formats forthat data class.

Further information will now be provided with respect to transformationof image formats. For example, the device may support contact images(e.g. for a contacts or address book application on the device) having aricher (e.g. more varied) format than contact images (for contacts oraddress book application on the host) on the host. Further, the devicemay store previously clipped versions of an image and previously scaledversions of images for a contact so it can display them quickly.

On the host, there may be just one small image for a contact's picture.This image can be fairly large if set via API (Application ProgramInterface) from another application, but if created in a contacts oraddress application on a host, it may be small, and if it is createdfrom an original image that is larger, that original image is lost. Incontrast, on the device, in one embodiment, the original image which wasused to create a contact image may be maintained in its entirety. Forexample, a user can pick images from a photo or camera application andapply them as a contact's image—these can be any size, so the user maychoose the visible area of the image to use, and that visible area is,if necessary, scaled (e.g. scaled down) so it fits on the screen. Thedevice may store a clip rectangle which the user chooses (though someuser interface) to choose the portion of that image to be displayed. Thedevice may also store clipped and scaled images for a rectangular-sizedand square-sized image. The rectangular image may be the size of thescreen, and may be shown on an incoming call. The square image may beshown scaled down even smaller as part of the contact, and used insituations where there is only some of the screen (a square area) whichis available to display the image. In one embodiment, when the userchooses the clip rectangle, the user interface shows how the rectangularand square images will look. If the user wants to regenerate what thedevice displays, the user will, in this embodiment, still have theoriginal image, so the user can go back to the original image and chooseanother clip rectangle, and regenerate the saved images in rectangularand square sizes and shapes.

Synchronization of contacts/address book, at least in one embodiment,includes synchronizing the images in the contacts/address book and thisincludes synchronizing the clip rectangle as well as the original image.The synchronizing process may also have to regenerate the optimizedimages in certain cases, such as if the user changes the image in theirAddress Book on the host, or if the user gets an image from a device andsynchronizes it to another device (e.g., the user gets an image from adevice with one sized screen and wants to synchronize it to a devicewith a differently sized screen). The Data Class Handler may, in oneembodiment, clip/scale new/changed images when synchronizing them ontothe device because that may be faster than having the device do it (andthe device may also be memory constrained. Because there might be morethan one device synchronizing the same contact images, and those devicescould have different sized displays, in one embodiment, separate cliprectangles are saved for each unique device display size, so an imagecan be clipped differently on one device with a different size thananother device. The Data Class Handler in one embodiment manages keepingtrack of the different rectangles (since each device will only knowabout the one rectangle that matches its screen size). For example, if adevice has 320×480 screen, and a contact image is originally 1024×800,the synchronization process stores optimized images for the entirescreen (320×480) and a square 320×320 representation as well. The usercan pick the clip rectangle out of the original image which is thenscaled down to 320×480 (and the device cuts out a 320×320 part), andthis is synchronized to the host. If the image changes on the host, thesynchronization process (through the Data Class Handler, for example)recomputes the 320×480 and 320×320 images for the device. If a new imageis synchronized to a device with a different size, if the original imageis still large enough to cover the screen, the synchronization process,in one embodiment, will find the center of the image in the clip areafor one of the existing clip rectangles (for the other size devicescreen), and expand/contract the clip rectangle accordingly to fit thedifferent size (e.g. larger size) screen. If the new device has asmaller screen, the synchronizing process may merely scale the imagedown to that size.

Another aspect of at least certain embodiments relate to frameworks andarchitecture for synchronizing widgets. Generally, widgets are userinterface elements that include information and one or more tools thatlet the user perform tasks and/or provide access to information. Widgetscan perform a variety of tasks, including, for example, communicatingwith a remote server or other source of data to provide information to auser (e.g., weather report; stock prices; sunrise/sunset times; currentphase of the moon; current exchange rates; etc.), providing commonlyneeded functionality (e.g., a calculator; a calendar; a clock; etc.), oracting as an information repository (e.g., a notebook). Widgets can bedisplayed and accessed through an environment referred to as a “unifiedinterest layer,” “dashboard layer,” “dashboard environment,” or“dashboard.” Widgets and dashboards are described in co-pending U.S.patent application Ser. No. 10/877,968, entitled “Unified Interest Layerfor User Interface,” filed on Jun. 25, 2004, which patent application isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Widgets on a device may be synchronized, using any one of theembodiments described herein, with widgets on a host or another device.The synchronization may be one-way (from device to host or anotherdevice only or from host or another device to device only) or two-way.In the case of two-way synchronizations, both systems will normally endup with a common set of widgets, assuming both systems can support thefull, common set of widgets.

Widgets may be treated, at least in certain embodiments, as another dataclass and may be synchronized using the architecture shown in FIG. 4 anddescribed throughout this disclosure. In one embodiment, a Data Sourcefor widgets may exist on a device and a Data Class Handler for widgetsmay exist on a host. The executable software which implements the widgetmay not be synchronized but the configuration settings for the widgetmay be synchronized between a device and a host or between a device andanother device. Each widget on a system may have configuration settingsand these settings may be stored as one file for a particular type ofwidget. For example, a weather widget may have settings which specifythree cities (e.g. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.) andthose settings are stored as one file or record for purposes ofsynchronization.

In the foregoing specification, the invention has been described withreference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will be evidentthat various modifications may be made thereto without departing fromthe broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in thefollowing claims. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to beregarded in an illustrative sense rather than a restrictive sense.

What is claimed is:
 1. A machine implemented method comprising:determining whether a first software component is available on a firstdata processing system, the first software component being one of aplurality of software components configured to cause synchronization ofstructured data of respective data classes during a synchronizationsession; requesting concurrent access to structured data of a first dataclass currently being used by a user application, wherein the userapplication is configured to use the structured data of the first dataclass concurrently with the synchronization session; and implementing,in response to determining the first software component is available, anorder of synchronizing structured data of the respective data classesduring the synchronization session based on whether concurrent access tothe structured data of the first data class is acquired, wherein theorder of synchronizing structured data includes synchronizing structureddata of a second data class prior to synchronizing structured data ofthe first data class when concurrent access to the structured data ofthe first data class is not acquired.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereinthe first software component is configured to cause synchronization ofthe structured data of the first data class during the synchronizationsession.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of softwarecomponents include one or more data sources, and wherein the respectivedata classes include one or more of: (a) calendar data, (b) contactdata, (c) email account setup information, (d) bookmarks, (e) notes, or(f) To Do items.
 4. The method of claim 3 further comprising sending, bythe first software component, a message specifying a next device anchorand a previous host anchor to cause, if synchronization of thestructured data of the first data class is successful, saving of thenext device anchor and a next host anchor.
 5. The method of claim 4,wherein implementing the order of synchronizing structured data of therespective data classes during the synchronization session is furtherbased on version identifiers for the plurality of software componentsand version identifiers for corresponding data class handler softwarecomponents on a host.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the plurality ofsoftware components are independently updateable.
 7. The method of claim6, wherein the plurality of software components are configured toprovide respective identifiers to the host for respective records havingstructured data of respective data classes, and wherein the respectiveidentifiers are capable of being different than identifiers for eachrecord maintained on the host.
 8. A non-transitory computer readablestorage medium containing executable program instructions, which whenexecuted by a data processing system, cause the data processing systemto perform a method comprising: determining whether a first softwarecomponent is available on the data processing system, the first softwarecomponent being one of a plurality of software components configured tocause synchronization of structured data of respective data classesduring a synchronization session; requesting concurrent access tostructured data of a first data class currently being used by a userapplication, wherein the user application is configured to use thestructured data of the first data class concurrently with thesynchronization session; and implementing, in response to determiningthe first software component is available, an order of synchronizingstructured data of the respective data classes during thesynchronization session based on whether concurrent access to thestructured data of the first data class is acquired, wherein the orderof synchronizing structured data includes synchronizing structured dataof a second data class prior to synchronizing structured data of thefirst data class when concurrent access to the structured data of thefirst data class is not acquired.
 9. The medium of claim 8, wherein thefirst software component is configured to cause synchronization of thestructured data of the first data class during the synchronizationsession.
 10. The medium of claim 9, wherein the plurality of softwarecomponents include one or more data sources, and wherein the respectivedata classes include one or more of: (a) calendar data, (b) contactdata, (c) email account setup information, (d) bookmarks, (e) notes, or(f) To Do items.
 11. The medium of claim 10 containing executableprogram instructions, which when executed by the data processing system,cause the data processing system to perform the method furthercomprising: sending, by the first software component, a messagespecifying a next device anchor and a previous host anchor to cause, ifsynchronization of the structured data of the first data class issuccessful, saving of the next device anchor and a next host anchor. 12.The medium of claim 11, wherein implementing the order of synchronizingstructured data of the respective data classes during thesynchronization session is further based on version identifiers for theplurality of software components and version identifiers forcorresponding data class handler software components on a host.
 13. Themedium of claim 12, wherein the plurality of software components areindependently updateable.
 14. The medium of claim 13, wherein theplurality of software components are configured to provide respectiveidentifiers to the host for respective records having structured data ofrespective data classes, and wherein the respective identifiers arecapable of being different than identifiers for each record maintainedon the host.
 15. A data processing system having one or more processorscoupled with a memory, the data processing system comprising: aplurality of software components configured to cause synchronization ofstructured data of respective data classes during a synchronizationsession; a user application configured to use structured data of a firstdata class concurrently with the synchronization session; and asynchronization software component configured to: determine whether afirst software component is available on the data processing system, thefirst software component being one of the plurality of softwarecomponents, request concurrent access to the structured data of thefirst data class currently being used by the user application, andimplement, in response to determining the first software component isavailable, an order of synchronizing structured data of the respectivedata classes during the synchronization session based on whetherconcurrent access to the structured data of the first data class isacquired, wherein the order of synchronizing structured data includessynchronizing structured data of a second data class prior tosynchronizing structured data of the first data class when concurrentaccess to the structured data of the first data class is not acquired.16. The data processing system of claim 15, wherein the first softwarecomponent includes a data source configured to cause synchronization ofthe structured data of the first data class during the synchronizationsession, and wherein the respective data classes include one or more of:(a) calendar data, (b) contact data, (c) email account setupinformation, (d) bookmarks, (e) notes, or (f) To Do items.
 17. The dataprocessing system of claim 16, wherein the first software component isconfigured to send a message specifying a next device anchor and aprevious host anchor to cause, if synchronization of the first dataclass is successful, saving of the next device anchor and a next hostanchor.
 18. The data processing system of claim 17, wherein thesynchronization software component is further configured to implementthe order of synchronizing structured data of the respective dataclasses during the synchronization session based on version identifiersfor the plurality of software components and version identifiers forcorresponding data class handler software components on a host.
 19. Thedata processing system of claim 18, wherein the plurality of softwarecomponents are independently updateable.
 20. The data processing systemof claim 19, wherein the plurality of software components are configuredto provide respective identifiers to the host for respective recordshaving structured data of respective data classes, and wherein therespective identifiers are capable of being different than identifiersfor each record maintained on the host.